Anti-vaccination = anti-feminist

pandagon.net.

Well, not intentionally, but there is a reason to think that anti-vaccination ideologists could hurt women more than men, amongst other damage that they can do. I finally had a chance to listen to a recent “This American Life” that dealt with, amongst other things, an outbreak of the measles in San Diego that was caused by parents refusing to vaccinate their kids because they’ve been fed and believe the misinformation about how dangerous vaccines are. The show is sympathetic to the parents who are caught up in this panic, since obviously they’re the same Whole Foods-shopping, over-anxious yuppies that make up the audience and staff of “This American Life”. The reporter understands how you want to control everything your kid eats or is exposed to, and how obsessed some parents get with the concept of purity in their kids’ input. (Which really is completely understandable, since you are what you eat.) Though I do have to wonder why the same people who refuse to trust the FDA, the CDC, the AMA, their own doctors, a multitude of scientists, and the entire medical community when it comes to vaccines happily trust a cardboard box at Whole Foods that says that the item inside is organic. If the FDA won’t or can’t control vaccine safety, then why on earth would they be able to ensure that organic food really is organic? There’s a darkly funny moment on the show when the initial quarantine announcements warned people who shopped at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s that they were in the greatest danger of exposure.